Digital information has become extremely important in all aspects of commerce, education, government, entertainment and management. In many of these applications, the ability to ensure the privacy, integrity and authenticity of the information is critical. As a result, several digital security mechanisms have been developed to improve security.
One commonly used approach to digital security involves a certificate authority (CA) to issue a certificate to a certificate holder. The holder can then provide the certificate to a third party as an attestation by the CA that the holder who is named in the certificate is in fact the person, entity, machine, email address user, etc., that is set forth in the certificate. And that a public key in the certificate is, in fact, the holder's public key. People, devices, processes or other entities dealing with the certificate holder can rely upon the certificate in accordance with the CA's certification practice statement.
A certificate is typically created by the CA digitally signing, with its own private key, identifying information submitted to the CA along with the public key of the holder who seeks the certificate. A certificate usually has a limited period of validity, and can be revoked earlier in the event of compromise of the corresponding private key of the certificate holder, or other revocable event.
One standardized approach to today's digital security is referred to as the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). PKI provides for use of digital certificates to authenticate the identity of a certificate holder, or to authenticate other information. Typically, a PKI certificate includes a collection of information to which a digital signature is attached. A CA that a community of certificate users trusts attaches its digital signature and issues the certificates to various users and/or devices within a system.
In the current market, companies and individuals who simply need PKI identity data may rely on a third party PKI service provider to provide PKI identity data and related services. In most cases, the PKI service provider needs to transfer PKI identity data over the network to its customers. Since identity data is being transferred over the network, the PKI service provider must present its customers means to ensure non-repudiation and correctness of the identity data. Accordingly, it would be desirable to ensure the privacy, authenticity and integrity of the identity data not only in the final environment but also at every intermediate stage of the delivery process.